I'm Already Dead (But You're Not)
by pralinepumpkinseeds
Summary: Frank/Karen pairing. We're in for the long haul, folks. Frank and Karen keep running in to each other, and he helps her feel less lonely. She helps him name his dog. They're in love but know they can't admit it.
1. Chapter 1

**(Notes: kinda sad that Frank isn't listed as a character for Daredevil yet... I'll update the listing as soon as that's fixed. This is a slow burn, b/c I'm all about their relationship being intense and building up because Frank has to get past his past...)**

It had been two months since she'd seen him last, standing on the rooftop, so far up, with the feeling that he had been staring back at her with his soul-searching eyes. She'd told him, that night in the woods, that he was dead to her. Since then, she hadn't really been sure what to think of him. When she'd realized that he was still alive… her heart had stopped for a moment, and she felt a piece of her soul shift back into place. But then he'd killed the Colonel… the Blacksmith. Part of her knew that was what he'd _had_ to do, that he'd been the last piece of the horrific puzzle of his past, but it hadn't felt right. Not because he didn't deserve it—the bastard definitely deserved it—but because she didn't think she could handle another death in her life, and she didn't want Frank to have to live with the fact that he had killed the last link to his family, the last person who could tell him what really happened, why they were dead.

The look in his eyes when he'd said "I'm already dead"… it haunted her, his words echoing through her dreams. Sometimes she too felt that she was already dead, that she was beyond saving, every day a chance to get further away from the night she'd sat across the table from someone who wanted her dead. The weight of that night, the blood on her hands, was like a shard of glass stuck in her foot, slicing and sending a jolt of pain with every step. Not telling anyone about it… that's what hurt the most. She had all this pain, this guilt, and she couldn't share it with anyone. Couldn't be comforted, couldn't tell anyone about the nightmares, the shock in Wesley's eyes before she'd shot him. Seven times.

But now, two months after the night Frank had killed the Blacksmith, Karen had been keeping up on Frank's—the Punisher's—activity. She'd only found seven small hits that fit his profile, only three of which had left the perpetrator dead. The other four had been muggers, beaten badly and left in allies. She assumed he was gathering intel on local criminals and gangs, and working on building a hideout somewhere in the city.

Today, she was headed to the center of Hell's Kitchen to interview an elderly woman whose apartment had been broken into, along with six other people in the building. The thieves had beaten her and her son, and though so far no one had been killed, Karen wanted to bring awareness to the suffering in this area, one of the poorer buildings in Hell's Kitchen, one often forgotten by those in safer areas. At first look, the apartment doesn't strike her as somewhere she'd want to live. Bricks are falling out of the building and trash litters the side of the road from an open dumpster. The buzzer system and locks by the front door are broken, so it isn't difficult to figure out how the burglars got into the building. The stairs are in similar shape, with paint peeling off the walls and leaving white flecks on the steps.

When Ell, the woman who'd been robbed and beaten only a couple nights before, opens the door, Karen can't help but gasp. There are bruises on her arms and face, and her split lip is almost too much.

"I'm sorry," Karen gasps, and the woman smiles, as she must know that her state comes as a bit of a fright. "I just—wasn't expecting it to be this bad. I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm um… I'm with the newspaper. I'd like to ask you a couple questions about what happened, if that's ok?"

"That's fine honey. But don't y'all have everything you need? A detective was just here asking me questions. He only left a minute ago."

Karen's stomach knots. The police already had all their statements, something she knows thanks to Brett. "This detective, what did he look like?"

Ell frowns. "He showed me his badge. Said his name was Ander. Big guy, your height. Dark hair… big black leather coat…"

Karen felt the tug of a smile and bit her lip. Frank.

"I'll be right back."

She runs to the window at the end of the hallway and looks down at the street, and sure enough, there he is. He's walking across the street, his coat crowding his figure. She has to fight the urge to run down the stairs after him, to ask him if killing the Blacksmith had healed or broken him. It's strange to see him walking in the daylight, his identity barely masked by a detective's badge and a baseball cap. He's almost to the other side of the street when he sees her car.

Her heart skips a beat.

He pauses, then turns around and looks up at her standing in the window. Their eyes meet, and she pushes down the urge to say his name, to raise a hand in greeting. Karen doesn't allow herself to move an inch. He nods, pulls the brim of his hat lower, and disappears behind a building.

She realizes she'd been holding her breath, and lets it out in one slow, shaky exhale. Maybe she should go after him, talk to him, get him to answer her questions- why did he help the Devil on the roof? Why did he stay in New York, where people knew what he looked like? Why not find another city to save?

She's shaking now, but it's too late to go after him. He's been swallowed by the city, and she would never be able to find him, no matter how hard she looked.

 _Keep it together, Karen._

She turns and heads back to the apartment, all smiles and charm for Ell. "Sorry about that, just wanted to make sure it wasn't another reporter."

Ell welcomes her into her home with a cup of coffee and a stale chocolate-chip cookie.

Karen's heart is still beating too fast.

 **(Notes: Thanks for reading! I'll try to update every few days! It's amazing how much this ship has absolutely consumed me)**


	2. The Alley by Josie's

**(Note: I know... it's only been a few hours since the first chapter- but I couldn't get it out of my head. Homework just wasn't enough to keep me busy. So, enjoy. these two are going to kill me...)**

It's been a while since she's seen Matt. After he revealed he was the Devil of Hell's Kitchen (something she'd already been suspecting, especially after that night with the Hand, his touch on her cheek so familiar), he'd acted like he expected his identity to receive pity or understanding for the way he'd been treating her and Foggy, his best friend. She couldn't forgive him yet, and wasn't sure if he wanted her forgiveness for his sake or for hers. Karen didn't think she could forgive him for abandoning Foggy (and Frank) at the trial like he had, for lying to her for so long. When Frank had asked her if she was in love with Matt at the diner, she hadn't been sure. They'd only recently broken up, and when they were together, she'd suspected that maybe she'd loved him, but… there'd always been doubt nagging away at her. She couldn't handle the lies, the excuses, and since Matt had told her the truth about himself, she'd known for sure that she could never let herself truly love someone who lied to her so often, and about so much. Frank hadn't believed her in the diner, but she knew that if asked the question again, she could without a sliver of doubt, answer, _no_.

She still saw Foggy, met with him occasionally at Josie's to talk about their lives, particularly his new job. Even when he doesn't have time to meet up, she finds herself at Josie's, drinking cheap beer and listening to patrons spill their life stories. Tonight though, she's meeting Foggy. It's been a week since she's seen him last, and the only thing she can think about while he's talking is, _does he know about Matt?_ She figures he must, since they were so close, and he always was ready with an excuse for Matt whenever he couldn't make it to work or the trial. But she can't bring it up, because what if he doesn't? It's not her information to tell—it's up to Matt to come clean to his best friend.

Foggy asks her how she's been doing, but she doesn't know. Badly, probably. But it's hard to tell from where she is, when everything feels like it isn't real, like life is happening in fractures around her.

"I'm good," she says, knowing the truth would only make him worry. "I've been keeping busy, working on stories for the Bulletin. I'm almost moved in to my new apartment, just got a couple of little boxes left."

Foggy smiles through his drink. "Good. Your old place was a shithole."

They both laugh. It's true, her old place wasn't great- it was all she could afford on the pay from Nelson & Murdock (which wasn't much) and the landlord had never bothered to paint over the patched bullet holes—they'd still been there when she moved to her new place.

"Looks like Nelson & Murdock splitting up was good for you," Foggy comments.

"In some ways, yeah. But I miss you guys, I miss helping people."

"You're still helping people, Karen. You're putting their stories out there, working against the system and reporting the nasty truths people don't really want to address."

"I guess. It was really nice to actively be involved in their lives, though. I am pretty good at this- I've got a real knack for investigating."

"Figures," Foggy sighs, "maybe you got it from all the training at the law firm, eh?"

She laughs again, and her cheeks already ache from the recently unfamiliar action. (Sometimes she has to remind herself to smile.)

They continue to chat about their work, about the people they've come across- Foggy had an encounter with a woman who wanted to sue her cats, and Karen had a guy give her a report on talking chairs- and laugh until she can't breathe.

But then Foggy gets a call from his boss, who tells him he's needed back at the office. He pays for their drinks (even after she protests) and then takes off, mind geared for work. She stays only a little while longer—it sucks to drink alone in public, and she doesn't really feel like talking to anyone else there. She's not even drunk yet, as they'd only barely made it through one round, and so is too aware of the bitter, cheap taste of her beer to even enjoy finishing it. She grabs her coat and leaves, yelling to Josie that she'll see her later that week, and Josie reminds her to bring Foggy—and Matt.

Karen isn't sure when she'll be returning with either.

It's dark when she steps outside, but the familiar dark of Hell's Kitchen- muddy with neon lights and dim street lamps. Drunken shouts and dogs barking fill the air, along with sirens and shouts. A shout and grunts echo from the alley next to Josie's, and a bottle breaks—someone's fighting. Karen pulls her coat tight around her shoulders and steps over the litter on the sidewalk—and a drunk man sleeping—until she's standing in the entrance to the alley. It's poorly lit by a single lamp that keeps flickering on and off, allowing her only to catch glimpses of the scene.

Three men are struggling, another one lays motionless on the ground. Another bottle breaks, followed by a groan, and then the second man collapses to the ground. Three seconds later, and the third one joins them. Karen can't tell if they're breathing.

The light flickers and illuminates the figure still standing. His face is bloody and bruised, but she would know him anywhere (possibly because he's so constantly covered in it—she can't remember if she's ever seen him without an injury).

"Frank," his name leaves her lips in a single breath.

He finally sees her, and curses softly under his breath. "I shoulda known you'd be here."

"What… happened?"

"What does it look like?"

"I mean it, Frank."

He sighs and walks over to her, stopping only a couple feet away, still in the shadows so she can't quite meet his eyes. "These scumbags tried to mug a couple a street over. Just takin' care of 'em."

"Are they…"

"Dead? Nah. I guess Red got to me. These guys weren't really at that level yet. If I see them doing something again though…" He growls and wipes blood off the side of his face.

"Well…" she says, but she doesn't really know where she's going with it, so she turns around and starts walking out of the alley.

"I read your article."

She stops and turns back around. He's out of the shadows now, a street lamp shining down on his face. It's bloody and bruised, but his eyes are steady, meeting hers.

"What did you—"

"I'm not a hero," he says, his fingers fluttering against his side.

"Frank."

"M'am. I'm not a hero. I—"

"That article wasn't just about you, Frank. It was for everyone in Hell's Kitchen. And, no, really you aren't a hero. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. But you protect people. I get that."

He nods, looking like he wants to say something.

"But… I don't know if I'm ready to move past that night in the woods,"

"I—I didn't mean for you to get hurt out there. I'm sorry."

"It's fine, it was… it was nothing. That's not what I meant. What I said in the woods… it still stands. You're dead to me." Even as she says it, she can taste the dishonesty sharp on her tongue.

"That's fine. I've accepted that m'am. I told you to stay away from me, didn't I? To get away from all of this?"

"How can I when you can't stay away from _me_?" She's yelling now, angry at him, angry at Matt, angry at herself for standing here.

"Because you aren't dead to me," He says, his voice low. "and, you keep ending up in spots where I happen to be fightin' the bad guys."

Her blood is rushing now, pounding through her head. "That's not—I'm not- you—Jesus, Frank. What am I supposed to say to that?"

"Nothin'." He grunts and turns to walk in the other direction, his steps heavy. "See you around, m'am. Stay outta trouble."

Karen stands in the same spot for almost a minute, staring at the place where he disappeared, the flickering light bouncing off the metal of the dumpster.

"Bye, Frank." A whisper to a grim alley and three unconscious muggers.

 **(Note: hopefully I'll be able to add the next chapter tomorrow. Stay tuned.)**


	3. Their New Diner

It's been a long day at the Bulletin, and Karen had barely made her deadline earlier in the day she'd been so distracted. Ever since she'd run into Frank a couple of days ago at Josie's, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about what he'd said. That she wasn't dead to him. She'd already known that since she'd seen him on the roof, but she hadn't expected him to admit it, to say it aloud to her. She'd expected him to cut all ties from her, to sink into hiding and stay away from her, exactly like he'd told her to do with him. _It's not like you really took his advice, Karen,_ she chastises herself. She'd bought more bullets for her .380, started carrying it with her everywhere she went. The Bulletin gave her an excuse to get out there and look for people who were causing trouble, to investigate them and bring their wrongdoings to light. But it wasn't without danger, and she wasn't sure whether she like it like that, or if it was merely something she put up with.

After all the violence she'd seen, she thought at first that she'd want to avoid it altogether, but that was proving difficult as it made her heart race, reminded her alive. Sure, it also sickened her, shook her to the core, but it was _real_ , and it was a part of Hell's Kitchen that she needed to make known—even if it meant getting into a spot of danger once in a while.

So now, after a long day, she finds herself turning away from the entrance to her new apartment building and heading down the street to the corner, where Alf's Diner is always running, always pumping out fresh pots of coffee. It's late and she's tired, but she drinks so much coffee that sometimes it doesn't keep her awake, just soothes her soul, makes her feel less frayed (and yes, in the mornings, it's the only thing that gets her running, alert, invested).

The diner is nearly empty at this time of night, save for a waitress and two teenagers huddled up in a window booth, sharing waffles. A dark figure sits in the back corner booth, hunched over a cup of steaming coffee and a newspaper.

 _Shit._ It's him.

"You've got to be kidding me," she mutters, and strides back to his table, asking the waitress to bring her a cup of coffee on the way.

Frank looks up when he hears her voice, and looks disgruntled, possibly annoyed that she's seen him. Karen tosses her briefcase into the seat and slides in, shrugging off her coat. He raises his eyebrows at this but doesn't say anything. The waitress—Sandy—drops a whole pot of coffee at the table.

"You folks look like you're gonna need this," She says with a smile.

"Thank you," Karen says, and pours herself a fresh cup.

He folds the newspaper into fourths. "I read your article about Ell and her neighbors."

"I didn't have much to go on," she comments, unable to keep the dismay out of her voice.

"It's enough for now," he says, stirring his coffee. "I haven't been able to track down the guys who did it yet, but I'm keeping an eye on the building, waiting for them to come around again."

From the tone of his voice, Karen can tell that he hopes they do, hopes they'll be unprepared for him, for the Punisher.

"Right. Well, if you do find them, let me know, will you? I could use the story."

"Sure."

They sit in silence for a moment, and Frank refills his cup, not even waiting for it to cool before taking a heavy gulp. This is going to drive her crazy.

"Can I ask you something?"

He only grunts in response, in a tone she's come to recognize as hesitant.

"Why did you stay in New York? I know you were gone for a couple of weeks, maybe just laying low somewhere but you came back. You could have gone anywhere else, seriously _anywhere_ , somewhere new, somewhere where people wouldn't instantly recognize you… why Hell's Kitchen?"

"Because I like this part of town, and it happens to need protecting."

"We already have Daredevil." She idly pours a packet of sugar into her coffee, swirling it around with a spoon.

He scoffs. "Red's done okay, but there's a lot building up out there and he's just not around enough to take care of the smaller things like he used to. I gotta pick up the slack."

Karen bites her lip. Even now, it's hard to picture Matt as the Devil, running around the streets of Hell's Kitchen, protecting people every night. The connection's fuzzy, even though she's seen him in action, knows that this is one thing he isn't lying about. At times it seems so ridiculous that she wants to laugh out loud, to scream, to call Matt and tell him he's an idiot for putting his life on the line so often when there are people out there who care for him. But she knows it's nothing he hasn't already heard. It's just that he doesn't care. His mission is more important to him than other things. And she gets that, she really does, but she knows that being alone can destroy you, eat away at your bones until you have nothing left to give.

"Why? You want me to leave?" From the tone of his voice, she thinks for a second that he might be smiling, but when she looks up at him that he's completely serious, face set and grim.

Her lips part, eyebrows furrow. "No. No, I don't."

There's another question she wants to ask, one that's been burning for quite a while now, one that she thinks she already knows the answer to. She doesn't think she's ready to ask it, doesn't know if he isn't ready to talk about it or if he'd rather put it behind him. Blowing up his house got rid of the last standing reminder of his old life, his family before they were killed. Now that it's gone, she wonders how much of him is still Frank Castle and how much is the Punisher. Are they no longer separate? Were they ever?

She doesn't ask because she doesn't want to know. The man sitting in front of her is Frank. Yes, he's the punisher, but at his core, he's Frank. The man who protects her, who doesn't lie to her, whose moral compass is so strong, so important to him that he's willing to kill to right the wrongs he sees in the world. He might not see himself as Frank Castle anymore, but she does.

"You're not gonna ask me why I'm here?"

She shakes her head and adds more sugar to her coffee. "I know why. The coffee here's always hot and dark."

He almost laughs. Almost. But it's difficult for the Punisher to smile. "It sure is."

She wishes he would laugh again, _truly_ laugh, like the other night in the dinner, or at the hospital. She'd give anything for him to really smile again, to let her know that he too still knows that he's not just the Punisher but Frank Castle, the man who fights for his family (for her) and protects with every fiber of his being. So she smiles back, and it comes so easily that she almost loses it, feels it slipping off her face. If he notices, he doesn't say anything, just drinks more of his coffee and scans the room. His hands tap at the table, at the mug, never still, and she smiles again—she's missed him, she realizes. Missed his anxious energy, his bruised face and soul.

They sit like this for a while, until the coffee is nearly gone, her reviewing her notes from work and him reading the newspaper, scoffing or grunting in approval every once in a while. When he's finished his last cup, he stands up, folding the newspaper into his coat pocket.

"I've gotta go, m'am. It's getting to be that time of night that almost invites people to break into other people's homes."

She nods. Ell. "Goodbye, Frank."

She calls after him when he's nearly out the door, "Don't forget to tell me if you find them!"

Once again he tips his hat, then disappears into the night.

Karen motions the waitress over and asks for a check.

"Oh, he's got a tab, honey. I'll just add it to that. He's in here almost every night."

Karen can't help but smile and shake her head. "Of course he is," she says, then heads home, feeling safe for the first time that week.


	4. Band-Aides and Trains

**[Note: for reference, I've put Karen in another studio apartment, but this one is nicer and bigger than her old one- hence being able to see her kitchen from her bed. I know it's been a few days, I've been sick so this is the first chance I've gotten to publish. More this weekend for sure! hope y'all enjoy this chapter! :) ]**

It's been a quiet night so far, which proves only to be unsettling. She's been in New York long enough that she's become accustomed to falling asleep to the sounds of chaos, the sounds of the city that never sleeps. So when she's woken up in the middle of the night by a dish clattering in her kitchen, it's almost comforting. The adrenaline coursing through her veins has become so familiar that sometimes she misses it.

Karen grabs her .380 off her bedside table sits up in bed, gun trained on her kitchenette. A dark figure is standing over her sink, looking through the cupboard. Breathing heavy, she cocks the .380. The figure goes still, hands above his head. His fingers tap against the top of his head, restless.

"Are you kidding me?" Karen lowers her weapon. "Frank, what the hell?"

Frank chuckles. "Good to see you're prepared for when someone actually breaks in."

Karen's heart is pounding hard in her chest. "You scared the hell out of me." She puts the gun back on the nightstand, then gets out of bed, pulling a sweatshirt over her head. It's cold in her apartment, and she considers pulling on sweatpants over her sleeping shorts, but the cold hitting her legs reminds her to stay awake. She crosses her arms over her chest, not bothering to turn on the light.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

He continues rummaging through her cupboard. "I was uh, trying to leave you a note about the apartment robberies."

There's a pad of paper on her coffee table, with a few lines hastily scribbled onto it.

"Ok, so you did that… why are you going through my cupboards?"

He turns to face her, frowning almost bashfully. There's a cut over his eye that's bleeding heavily, sending blood dripping down his cheek. He gestures to it.

"This damn cut opened up. You got any band-aids or a first aid kit or somethin'?"

Karen almost laughs, arms dropping to her side. "You broke into my room and now… the Punisher needs a band-aid?"

"Well… yeah."

Karen scoffs and walks into her bathroom, reaching under the sink for the first aid kit. "Most people don't keep these in their kitchens, Frank." She stands up and gasps from the closeness of him, looming in the door way.

"Sorry," he mutters, taking a step back.

She hands him the kit. With his boots on, he's a couple of inches taller than her, so she has to look up at him to see the cut properly. It's a couple of inches long, and it looks like he glued it together himself, but the top bit had ripped during the night, and was now bleeding freely. It had dripped down onto his shirt, blending in with the black fabric. The light in the bathroom illuminates the bruises on his face, and she can't help but sigh.

"You're always covered in bruises, Frank. Am I ever gonna see you without them?"

Frank smiles, looking away from her. "I honestly don't know."

Karen sits on the edge of the tub while Frank tends to the cut above his eye.

"So, how many of them did you get?"

"All three of them. Sent a call to the cops, they'll find 'em."

"Dead?"

Frank fixes her with a steady gaze. "Dead. They deserved it."

Karen nods curtly. They had definitely deserved to be punished- one of their victims was going to be wheelchair-bound the rest of his life, and who knew how many other homes they had hit in the area—or how many people had died because of their greed.

Frank finishes up at the sink, sticking a band-aide on his brow. He smiles, but it's sad, a smile for a memory.

"The last band-aide I used had little trains on it. Frank Jr… he liked trains. Liked patching people up. I wasn't even hurt, he just…. He liked to help." Frank's gripping the sink with white knuckles. "Dammit. I thought I…"

"Got rid of it?"

He nods, jaw clenched.

"Frank, you can never get rid of those memories. Burning down your old house… that might've helped you lose the connection, but you still _had a family_. That all happened, Frank. And you're never going to forget it… the only thing you can do is swallow that pain and try to move on." She doesn't say that she knows he can never really move on, that it was a mistake to kill the Blacksmith when he did, because now it'll be so much harder to get to the truth. She doesn't tell him that she knows what it's like to be tied down by your past, to feel like you're never going to escape it.

Frank lets out a bitter laugh. "I know. I know. Becoming the Punisher… that was supposed to let me leave Frank Castle behind…"

"Frank, your family… it hasn't even been a year yet. You need time. You're never going to forget them, and I know you don't want to, no matter how much you think it'll help the pain—it won't. It'll just make you lonely."

"Is that what you are? Lonely?"

Karen looks away from his eyes, pulling at the sleeves of her sweater. "Sometimes. A lot, actually."

"I'm sorry," Frank says, letting go of the sink. He takes a step towards her, but then hesitates and whips around, heading back into the studio apartment.

Her breath catches in her throat, the next one coming out in short bursts. It's too easy to trust him.

Frank is sitting on her couch when she walks into the living area, scribbling away on her notepad. He finishes and stands up quickly.

"Frank…" Karen says, barely a whisper.

He fingers the band-aide above his eye. "I'm good." He grunts. "You're out of coffee," he mutters, then he's gone, slipping through her front door.

The apartment feels colder when he's gone, and louder.

There's a drop of blood on her coffee table, glistening in the dim light coming in through the windows.


	5. The Alley is a Popular Place

On February 20th, a convenience store owner is robbed at gunpoint. When someone else walks in, the burglar panics and shoots the man behind the counter in the shoulder. It looks like he's going to live, and from his angry shouts, it sounds like he's ready to find the guy who did this to him. The Bulletin sends Karen to interview anyone she can, and by the time she gets there the only person who's free to talk is the owner of the Chinese restaurant next door, who'd been closing up shop when his neighbor got shot. His name is Fred, and he's angry.

"I can't believe this kind of shit keeps happening!"

Karen jots down a milder version of his statement. "How many times has something like this happened in the past month?"

Fred scowls and leans against the doorway of his shop, crossing his arms. "This street's been hit at least six times this month. Someone robbed my cashier only last week! You'd think the fools would be afraid of the Devil or the Punisher, but nope! They're still too damn stupid." He sighs. "I guess since it's New York we'll never really _not_ have crime, but you'd think it still would've gone down more. Whatever. I moved my shotgun to the front desk though. Hope nobody tries this shit twice."

Karen nods, scribbling furiously. "I think it'll keep getting better—but you're right. Crime will never really leave New York. Or anywhere, for that matter."

"Damn shame."

Out of the corner of her eye, Karen sees a dark figure slip into the alley behind Fred's. Light from the shop hits the side of his face and Karen freezes, sucking the air between her teeth. His hair is messy, and his nose looks like it's been broken several times. Her heart speeds up and she taps her pen on her notepad, now impatient.

"Did you get a good look at the guy? Anything useful about him I can put in the papers, see if anyone'll call in a tip?"

"I didn't see much, I really just heard it. Lots of yelling. A gun shot." Fred shrugs. "Probably just another thug, lookin' for a buck."

Karen checks the alley out of the corner of her eye but doesn't see anyone.

"Well, thanks for your time, Fred. Hope your restaurant stays safe." Karen hands him her card (freshly printed; she'd tried to object but Ellison had insisted).

"Thank you, Miss Page," he pockets the card. "You come around sometime for a free meal!"

Karen smiles. "Thanks, Fred. I'll definitely do that."

She hurries over to the alley, doing her best to keep her calm so the officers on the scene don't get suspicious. Frank's leaning against the wall, repeatedly tossing a bullet up into the air and catching it. He looks up as she approaches, keeping the bullet moving in his hands.

"I thought you might show up here," He says.

"Yea, well, it's my job, isn't it?" Karen sighs and crosses her arms across her chest. "I guess it's yours too."

He nods and swipes an anxious thumb across his jawline. "Yeah." Frank pulls a small item out of jacket and holds it out to her.

"What's that?"

He just gives a quiet grunt and shakes it a little, waiting for her to take it.

Karen closes the distance between them, taking it when she's an arm's length away from him. She raises her eyebrows. "A burner phone?"

"Well, we can't give each other tips if we can't communicate. And I can't keep breaking into your apartment." He scoffs. "You really need a better security system. It was too easy to get in your window."

"I'll… get on that."

"I put the number of my burner in there. If you come across anything I can take care of… message me. I'll do the same."

"So… no more 'stay away from me, stay away from this'?"

He gestures to the scene outside the alley. "You're already in it, m'am. Nothin' to do about that now."

"Thanks," She says, putting the phone in her pocket.

"For what?"

"For not saying some bullshit about me not being able to handle myself or- or for thinking you can choose how I live my life. I've had enough of that." (Matt telling her not to work at the bulletin. That she can't take care of herself. Knowing that he cares but that he doesn't know how to do it properly, not with her.)

"Not your first rodeo, remember?"

She nods. "So. You find something about correction, you call me. Text me, whatever. If I hear about some awful criminal activity…" She swallows. They'll die. Anyone she sends to Frank, they die. "Just make sure they deserve it. Punishment to fit the crime, Frank. Not just death."

"They don't call me the Punisher for nothing," he says, the bullet moving through his fingers again. "If they shouldn't be on the streets, they won't. That's it. I won't let people get back to the streets if they're just gonna hurt someone, kill a kid or somethin'. I won't have it."

"I know." She'll only send him info on the gangs, on the groups that keep getting away. The smaller criminals will already be taken in by the police, or by Matt, who's been more under the radar as of late. Quiet and withdrawn ever since Elektra's death, not even saying anything about her empty grave.

They stand in silence for a moment, Karen wondering about Matt and missing the Matt she'd known, and Frank watching her, toying with the bullet.

The muffled sounds of a police radio bounce of the walls. Karen turns to the entrance and sees the shadow of a police officer approaching. She whips back around to Frank to tell him to get out of here, but he's already gone. She's starting to get sick of how quickly he disappears.

"You all right back here miss?" The officer shines a flashlight on her.

"Yes, sorry officer. Just looking around the scene."

"Alright, just be careful. Never know where these guys go." The officer heads back to the scene.

"No, you never do," Karen mutters, staring at the place Frank had stood. "You never do."

 **(Note: sorry I took so long to update! college is kicking my ass. hope you enjoyed it! more coming soon :) )**


	6. Frank, Red, and More Coffee

Frank slams the last guy into the wall and hears his neck snap from the impact. His body falls to the floor with a satisfying _thump_. Frank sighs heavily and slides down the wall until he's sitting between the bodies of his enemies. Their wall of computers is on fire and riddled with bullet holes—Frank destroyed the stash of child porn the first chance he got (but not before deploying a virus that sent all the IP addresses of every person who'd purchased or even interacted with it to the FBI). He'd gotten this tip from Karen, when a fellow journalist had been reporting on the rise of arrests for child pornography in the area but hadn't been able to track the source. Frank had tracked down some of the best hackers in the city—hiding out in the back of a neon café, of course—and hired them to do research and design viruses for him. Thanks to Karen, getting the bigger picture- the organizations behind the small-time criminals- was becoming easier as they made connections with others who were trying to do the same.

This was the first project they'd worked to completion, and Frank had done the dirty work solo, as he always had; he just didn't work well with others while out fighting. It was too risky, too easy to get caught up in the rage of battle and blindly attack anyone who came at him (and no one has to see what he gets like, how he really can be the monster they think he is: the Punisher). The house was disgustingly predictable, filthy in every way imaginable, lit only by the blue light of the computer screens that lined the walls. It had been too easy to break in and take them down; they'd only had one bodyguard and he'd surrendered as soon as he'd seen the skull on Frank's the Punisher's chest. The rest were weak, armed with only a couple of pistols and their fists, weak from sitting behind their computers and building a dirty empire. Now their blood is spattered on his shoes, smeared across his knuckles. A lamp sparks and topples over, shattering.

A shadow falls across the floor and Frank chuckles when he sees the two small horns move across the destroyed room.

"Evenin', Red."

"Frank. I see you've been busy."

"You following me now? Don't you have better things to do?"

"I needed to talk to you."

"Oh," Frank blows air between his teeth.

"You can't keep talking to Karen, involving her in this," Daredevil's tone is hard, his fists clenched at his sides. "Stopping working with her, Frank."

"Oh, like you did Murdock?"

The Devil pauses for a beat, then exhales fast like he's been punched in the gut. "How do you—how do know who I am?"

"You kiddin' me, Red? You don't even change your voice… I realized it was you in that court room when you asked if you could call me Frank. You know you take care by covering your face, but your voice… you did a lot of talking on that roof, my friend. A lot of talking."

"I—" Murdock's speechless, for once, and Frank has to laugh at the sight.

"Listen man, I'm not gonna tell anyone. There's no point. You do your thing, I do mine."

Murdock knods. "Karen-"

Frank shakes his head. "Uh-uh man. Karen, she does her thing too. You gotta stop with this bullshit. She's gonna make her own decisions no matter what you do."

"But she can't-"

"Take care of herself?" Frank stands up, shanking blood from the sleeve of his coat. "You ever witness the girl with a gun? I think she can handle herself in most situations."

"What about when she can't? What about then, Frank? You have no right to drag her into this!"

"Are you fucking kidding Red? I didn't ask her to do this. She did this on her own. She'll keep investigating shit that happens here whether or not I'm out there feeding her information. At least if she's getting the info from me then she's not out there all the time looking for it herself! You can't treat her like she's about to break, or she will."

"You don't know her," Matt's nearly shaking now, anger flying through his words.

"No. You don't know her. She cares about the people of this city, man, and she's never gonna stop working for them." Frank moves to leave, heading towards the back door, but Murdock steps in front of him, holding out an arm across Frank's chest in warning.

"You can't do this."

"Yes, she can. It's her choice. I know you care… about her. But this isn't the right way. You can't stop her from doing what she wants—what she needs to do. No one can."

"It's not that—this city is dangerous, Frank."

Frank laughs. "It's dangerous no matter who you are. That's why we're out there, Red."

"We can't do enough. There's always something… someone hurting this place."

Frank's tone drops to the bottom of his throat. "I know. But she works against that too. Do you stop when people tell you to? _Beg_ you to?"

The Devil shakes his head, starts to protest, to defend himself, but then bites his lip and goes still, shoulders slumped in worried defeat. "Just… keep an eye on her. I'm too busy to worry about Karen all the time."

It's interactions like these where Frank realizes why Karen couldn't have truly loved Matt, and that he never had really loved her either—they'd both loved ideas of each other, not their true selves. The way Karen had looked in the courtroom, the love she'd had for Matt—it hadn't been the true Matt, not when she hadn't known about his nighttime activities. These moments also make him wish he hadn't gotten close enough to Karen Page to know this, but now it was too late; he couldn't stop talking to her even if he wanted to—Karen would make sure of that.

Murdock leaves before Frank can say anything, and he's left standing alone in the desolate house, the only sound his own breathing and the sparks from the computers. He swallows the urge to go to Karen's, and instead stops in a run-down diner for coffee and shoots Karen a text that they've been taken care of and it's time for her to send an anonymous tip to the police.

His coffee tastes bitter that night.

 **(Note: sorry it's been a while and sorry these chapters are so short! the next ones are going to be longer, trust me. how's the slow burn goin' for y'all? ;) hopefully adding two more chapters over the next three days. stay tuned)**


	7. Frank has a Dog

**(Note: Sorry it's been so long since I updated, I had finals week and got really busy. hope you enjoy this chapter! It's a lot longer than the other ones.)**

For the past few weeks the only communication Karen's had with Frank has been through the burner phone he gave her, and through the hackers he hired (with stolen gang money) to track down pedophiles and criminals. She thought she saw him once in a diner, drinking coffee, but by the time she'd gotten to the door to go inside, he was gone, and she was left wondering. Ellison had figured out that she'd been sending Frank information pretty quickly, since she was always a step ahead of the other reporters on the cases, and had details before anyone else. He hadn't been happy with her getting intel from a wanted fugitive, but promised he wouldn't say anything as long as she eased up on the intensity and let her colleagues in on the cases once in a while.

It's been a couple of days since Frank has contacted her, and at first she pondered the idea that maybe he was taking a break, but had labelled that thought as foolish nearly the second it had entered her mind. Frank Castle—the Punisher—never took breaks, even if he deserved them. Karen worried that the constant hunting, stalking and fighting enemies, coupled with hardly any sleep and more coffee than even she could handle was going to break away at him until he was too exhausted and broken to function. She'd tried suggesting he take a day off once over text, and he'd just replied: "no. They don't take days off neither do I". She had almost called him then, to try to convince him to just rest _a little_ , but had stopped with her finger hovering over the dial button, his contact already selected. It seemed unlikely he would answer the phone, let alone listen to her pleas to _just take a nap, dammit_ \- and not one of those "military naps" where he would fall asleep for barely more than half an hour, then jolt awake and chug more coffee, eyes dark and anxious. She'd witnessed one of those a couple of days after he'd given her the phone, when she'd demanded he come over to give her all the information he already had from the past few months in person, because she was getting sick of staring at the tiny screen and trying to decipher his shorthand notes (which she could do now with a certain amount of ease), and was pretty sure he was getting sick of typing it all out on the tiny phone.

He'd fallen asleep sitting up on her couch while she was curled up on the chair, organizing the notes in a way that made chronological sense and jotting down the main points in a separate notebook. It took a couple of minutes for her to finally notice that he'd dozed off, clued in by a single, soft snore. She'd been so surprised to see him sleeping that she'd almost laughed, putting a hand over her mouth to hide tiny giggles. He didn't look peaceful when he was asleep, instead his brow furrowed in worry—or maybe anger—and his jaw twitched every so often, accompanied by the staccato tics of his fingers on his thigh.

Karen had stayed as quiet as she could, returning to her notes and expecting him to sleep for a couple hours, but instead he had violently jolted awake only a half hour later, gripping the edge of her couch and looking around wildly like he's forgotten where he is. Then he sees her and realizes where he is, and his whole body shudders as he relaxes and then instinctively reaches for the cup of coffee on the coffee table in front of him. Karen's still as he chugs the coffee and winces at the cold bitterness of it. She doesn't say anything, bites back "are you ok?" because she knows what the answer will be and what the truth is. She wants to say that she understands it, that when she sleeps she forgets where she is—sometimes she's haunted by nightmares, images of her past, and sometimes her dreams are empty, a comforting black void that lets her be at peace until she wakes up and remembers. But the peaceful dreams never last long, and make it so much worse when she's finally awake. She's afraid to even get drunk anymore because of the intensity of her guilt that comes with it. It doesn't matter how many times she tells herself that what she did was necessary, justified. It was too close to what she'd done before, what she'd lost before.

So now she drinks coffee at all hours and stares out into the city with the lights off, waiting for a text from Frank, from Foggy, from anyone really. It's what she's doing right now, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, when she could be out enjoying the day, maybe even with friends (if she had any, and if it was easy to actually enjoy the day). She's allowed herself a moment's peace in the form of the book on her lap, a light-hearted story about a woman's travels through Europe and the people she meets. It's a journalistic peace, but is anecdotal enough that Karen convinces herself the book's not part of work and that she's doing something fun in her free time.

Reading the descriptions of the woman's travels almost makes Karen jealous, and she yearns to be somewhere else, enjoying her life instead of _nearly_ enjoying it, living for her work and for Hell's Kitchen instead of just herself. But it's those things that keep from being alone with her thoughts, something she's found to be dangerous and lonely.

Karen has just gotten to the part when the woman in her book is preparing to go on a river boat tour when a loud pounding starts on her door. The book falls from her startled hands as she jumps, adrenaline pumping through her veins.

"Who is it?" She shouts, scrambling off her couch and then making her way to the door.

"Frank," his voice is muffled from the door, but he sounds strained.

"You better not be injured, dammit," Karen mutters under her breath. She undoes the many deadbolts and locks on the door and then opens it, pushing the baseball bat that sits in the corner upright to keep it from falling over.

Frank steps into her studio, carrying a dog. Karen just stares at him, taking in the light blue baseball cap pulled over his short hair, the grey sweatshirt (the only time she's ever seen him without a military jacket on), and the dog. The _bleeding_ dog.

"Um," Karen says at the same time that Frank says, "Do you have better bandages now?"

She does. She shuts the door and jogs to the bathroom, pulling out her fresh first-aid kit (one of many that she bought, along with various bandages, pain killers, and stitching materials—she figured it was better to be safe than sorry when you're working with the Punisher). Karen hurries back to Frank, who's now sitting on the floor, using napkins (the ones she keeps on her counter that she takes from diners) to ebb the flow of blood from the dog's paw. Sitting on the floor, she spreads the contents of the first aid kit on the ground between them and starts digging through it for antiseptic pads and gauze.

"What happened to him?"

"We were walking and he stepped on a broken bottle piece. Your place was closer than mine."

Frank Castle walking a dog on a sunny day. Karen adds it to the list of things she'd never imagined the Punisher doing. Frank having a dog isn't too surprising, since his lifestyle would be too lonely without a companion, and Frank was the type of person who got really close to people really easily, and needed at least a couple close companions in his life. Karen tries not to think about his last close companions had been ripped out of his life.

"Um, when did you get a dog?" She asks, handing him another antiseptic wipe and some Neosporin.

Frank works quickly on the dog's paw, hushing it and patting its side when it tries to lift its head and see what he's doing. "I found him… a little more than a week ago."

Karen huffs and rolls her eyes. Sometimes it's difficult to get him to say more than a sentence about something.

"Where?" She prompts, while stuffing the unnecessary items back into the kit and setting aside some of the bandage wraps.

He glances up at her with a small half-smile, recognizing her journalistic digging. "Small dog fighting event on the other side of town. He was one of the only ones still breathing." His eyes go dark with anger and Karen bites her bottom lip, recognizing the anger that recalling innocent victims brings out in Frank.

"Okay," Karen says. "So he's safe now, and staying with you… wherever it is you stay."

Frank just nods, returning his attention to the paw and wrapping it in the blue bandages.

After setting the first aid kit on the counter, Karen starts rummaging through her cupboards for bowls. She finds two, filling one with water from the sink before laying it on the floor by the coffee table. She digs through the fridge until she finds food acceptable as dog food (some leftover boiled chicken and rice) and brings the second bowl over next to the first one.

"Thanks, but you don't have to do that," Franks says, going to lift the dog.

Frowning, Karen sits in her chair. "Look at him. He's exhausted, Frank. And his paw probably hurts too."

Frank looks at the dog, who lifts his head and does his best to look pathetic. Frank sighs and carries him over to the bowls before plopping himself onto the couch. Karen beams, watching the dog (and Frank out of the corner of her eye).

"Frank?"

"Mmph," is the only answer she gets, Frank opening one eye to look at her. His arms are spread on the back of the couch and he's spread out, looking like he might fall asleep if allowed to.

"What's the dog's name?"

"He uh, doesn't have one."

Karen stares at him, bewildered. "You're telling me you've had this dog for a week and you _haven't named him yet?_ What do you call him then?"

Frank scratches his head and tosses one of his bashful looks her way. "Dog?"

"Oh, my god. Frank. Dog? Dog?" The dog lifts his head and looks at her. "You can't just call him dog. That's insulting. Have you ever had a dog before?"

"Ever since I was a kid," Frank defends himself, closing his eyes again. "Last dog I had was named Max… he was dognapped," (Karen has to bite her lip and rest her chin in her hand to keep her face passive when Frank says "dognapped", it's too funny to her) "by the Irish, and after we got out of that I guess the police grabbed him and brought him to a shelter. When I finally went to look for him, he'd been adopted. It's better, Max being with a family. And now I've got," he opens his eyes and glances at her. "… Dog."

"We've got to come up with a name for him that isn't just a description."

Frank doesn't say anything about her use of "we" and just nods. "Go ahead, m'am. But I get to approve it. No 'Fluffy' or anything like that."

Karen laughs, and then studies the dog on the floor before her. He's happily finishing up the chicken, his little tail wagging behind him. He's a light grey pit bull, with a tiny spot of white on the back of one of his ears. After a couple of minutes, it comes to her, and she laughs a little.

"What about… Skulls?" She asks, waiting for his reaction.

"Skulls..." He tries it out in his mouth, then turns a critical eye on the dog, tilting his head. "What about you, dog? You like that? Skulls?" The dog tilts his head and wags his tail, and Frank shrugs. "I guess it's Skulls, then."  
"Now you guys will match. With the symbol and everything."

Frank chuckles. "And here I was thinking it might've been after Scully from the X-Flies."

Karen smiles. "Well, that works too. Both are adorable." She coos the last sentence, reaching out to scratch Skulls' ears. He wags his tail and then sets his head down sleepily.

After a couple of minutes of watching Skulls drift off to sleep, Karen realizes it's after dinner time, and offers Frank some food. He grunts in response, and she takes it as a yes, moving to fridge and once again rooting through her leftovers for her guest. She finds a couple of acceptable boxes of takeout from the Thai place down the street, and carries them over to the couch, handing Frank one with a fork. He thanks her and digs in, indiscriminately eating the food, even the water chestnuts she'd avoided her first round with the meal. Eating her leftover chicken with vegetables, Karen watches Frank and Skulls, letting their presence sink in to her studio. She almost never has guests over (her only guests being Foggy—sometimes with Marci, once with Matt a couple of weeks after she'd first moved in to the new apartment), and so far Frank has earned the spot of "most frequent". It's a strange existence, being so familiar with the Punisher, eating takeout with him in her living area, but then she's reminded that she dated the Devil of Hell's Kitchen for a couple of weeks, and she snorts into her fork, unable to contain her laughter. Frank looks up at her and raises an eyebrow.

"What?" he asks, pausing before his next bite.

She smiles at him, gesturing around them. "It's just… when I moved to New York, I never thought I'd be friends with any vigilantes, let alone eating leftover Thai in my living room with one." (or the ex of one.)

He smiles a little back. "And I never thought I'd be one. But here we are." His face goes dark for a second, and he glances at her again before distracting himself with his food.

They spend the rest of the meal in silence, both staring at Skulls sleeping on the floor, Karen racking her brain for conversation topics—but since it was Frank, she was having a hard time coming up with any that weren't too personal or trivial. And it wasn't like either of them were really into any interesting hobbies that weren't centered on crime… by the time Karen had thought to just ask him about how it'd been going out on the streets, he was crossing over to her kitchen and tossing his empty carton in the trash. She watched him as he washed his fork, dried it, and put it back in the drawer (the Punisher was a polite houseguest… she tucked that away in her Frank Castle notes). Then he goes through her cupboards until he finds the coffee, and starts a pot on the counter. He leans against the counter while the coffee pot hums, arms crossed and studying her apartment.

Karen finishes her carton and tosses it, putting her fork in the sink but not washing it as he had done; she'd do it tomorrow, after she had made a few more dishes by eating breakfast. He watches her as she leans back against the counter next to him, crossing her arms in a mirrored fashion.

"Do you mind if we stay here tonight?" He grunts, and she has to admit she's surprised.

"Really?" she almost stutters. "I… of course not."

"He… Skulls just looks really tired," Karen smiles at his use of the name she chose as Frank nods towards the lightly snoring dog. "And I really don't want to carry him all the way back to my place."

"That's fine." Karen purses her lips and tilts her head at him. "How far _is_ your place?"

He raises both eyebrows, uncrossing his arms and putting them on the counter behind him. "Too far to carry a hundred-something pound dog"

She glares at him.

"Look, I can't have you knowing where I stay… it's not safe. What if someone wanted to find out where I was and decided they could use you to get that information?"

It's her turn to cock an eyebrow at him. "Well, then I suppose they'd try to get the information whether I actually knew it or not, wouldn't they?"

Frank actually barks out a laugh, sliding his hand down his face and biting his lip. "I guess they would, yeah." He shakes his head and grins. "Good to see you've got some spite in ya."

Karen elbows him. "You haven't answered my question."

"It's about six blocks from here, a real cheap place. Good for rent, good for hearing if any of the neighbors are in trouble or _are_ trouble. I'm sure you could find it if you looked. It's the grey building by Marco's corner store."

Karen nods understandingly. "I know the place. Damn, I probably could've guessed it."

A look of alarm crosses his face. "Is it too obvious? Should I move locations?"

"No, no. It's only because I know you better," she assures him. "Your average criminal with no real knowledge of Frank Castle wouldn't be able to figure it out, you're fine."

Frank nods appreciatively at the same time as the coffee pot stops gurgling, signaling that it's done. He gets a mug out of the cupboard and fills it with steaming coffee. She watches his nose crinkle as the bitterness hits him.

"If it's too bitter, why don't you just put sugar or cream in it?"

He shakes his head. "The bitterness is part of what keeps me awake. A little shock to the system that I can never seem to quite get used to." He gestures to the coffee pot with his mug. "Do you want some?"

"No, thanks, I'm gonna go to bed in a couple of hours. And I try to cut off my coffee consumption on the weekends after six… and it's almost eight thirty."

"Really?" He looks dubious.

"Hey, I said _try_ , didn't I? But tonight I really shouldn't because I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep this whole week, and was counting on tonight to try to make up for it. I want to get at least six hours."

"Alright," He does his half-frown and shrugs, heading back over to the couch.

Karen heads over to her bed, and grabs a couple of blankets and a pillow from the trunk at the end of her bed. She tosses them onto the couch next to Frank and returns to her chair with her book. He picks up one of her notebooks for the cases they're working on together and flips through it as she tries to get lost in her book again. After a couple of chapters, Karen notices him get up and cross the room to her sparse bookcase, reading each title and occasionally taking a book out to read the back cover or a couple of pages. She finds herself nearly sighing in relief that she doesn't own many romances, instead mostly nonfiction and general fiction (which admittedly, often reads like a mild romance). After almost another chapter of her book, he returns to the couch with a Stephen King novel, and she resists from saying anything as he kicks off his boots and sits on her couch, reading the book.

Karen drags her attention back to her book, sliding down in her chair and raising her book to block her view of him, as he's too distracting. For a while it works, but then he gets up and checks the locks on her windows, and then her door, sliding the last couple deadbolts in to place (she'd forgotten to properly lock them all after he'd come into her apartment with a bleeding dog) and eyeing the baseball bat and then picking it up and testing its weight. After an approving nod, he refills his coffee cup. On his way back to the cough he notices her eyeing him and grunts, "What?"

"You never sit still, do you?"

"Would you expect me to?"

She shakes her head. "Are you going to sleep while you're here, or just pace the room and check the locks every couple hours?"

"I'll sleep."

Karen narrows her eyes. "For longer than thirty minutes?"

He furrows his brows and looks up at her over his mug of coffee. "You timed me that time I fell asleep here?"

She rolls her eyes. "I happened to notice the time." He doesn't say anything. "Frank, you've gotta sleep for longer than thirty minutes at a time. Please tell me that you do."

"… Sometimes," He says, drinking more coffee.

"What does that mean? How often?"  
"Why do you have so many questions? Why does it matter to you how much I sleep?"

"Because I know what it's like to not want to sleep. To see the same thing over and over when you close your eyes, to have to relive certain things, to never be able to escape them." She sets her book down in her lap and scooches up so she's more level with him, even if he is several feet away. "I know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night, scared and confused, desperately trying to figure out where you are, even though you're safe in your own bed." She didn't mean to say all that, to bare herself, but with Frank it doesn't feel dangerous, just a natural thing to do.

He stares at her for a minute, and she doesn't dare look away from those eyes.

"It's hard to sleep for a long time," He finally says, and she can feel the unsaid things, things he might want to say but is holding back. Things she knows better than to push for. "It just doesn't feel safe."

Karen nods, and isn't sure of what to say next. The air feels too raw, and they've communicated so many things just from glances, from the ways his eyes have settled. Skulls' snores fill the air as Frank thumbs the Stephen King novel, sipping at his coffee.

"Why…" He stops, frowning. "Why do you help me? Why would you want to? I… used you as bait, and I killed Schoonover."

Karen sets her jaw. "Because what you're doing is mostly right, even if it is illegal. I've seen the other way, the system, and it doesn't always work. Sometimes you need another way to get justice. As for using me as bait… it's fine, I knew I'd be safe. Though I really would've appreciated more of a heads up, some more communication. And Schoonover… I just, really didn't want you to lose your last connection to the truth, I didn't want you to lose that. I think I was projecting, and I didn't want the taking of a life to be a waste."

Frank looks like he doesn't know what to say.

"I know I said we would be done," She continues, tapping the arm of her chair. "and that was because it was the only way I could think of stopping you from killing him at the time, and I felt like maybe it would be fine to lose you since I'd thought you were dead only an hour before, but… you're one of the only people I know here, one of the few good people I know _at all_ , and I thought I could control a situation that was out of my hands." The last parts turns into a ramble and Karen ends by letting out the rest of her breath.

Frank rubs his forehead and fingers the handle of the mug before looking up at her. "I really shouldn't've put you in that situation." His eyes are pleading. "I'm sorry, and I should've apologized earlier. You didn't deserve it."

Karen feels a tear starting to form in one of her eyes, from finally addressing this issue, and thinking about why it's so hard for the both of them to sleep, and generally how fucked up this situation in New York has become, and she has to let out a short laugh to cover it up, blinking to stop any more.

"Well, I'm glad we finally talked about that," She says, picking up her book again. She doesn't think she could handle hearing the answer to _Did you mean it when you said you were already dead?_ so she saves the question for another time, instead settling into the contentment at have having one of her friends back (and then is unsettled by the idea that she considers the Punisher her friend, but quickly squashes the feeling by reminding herself who Frank Castle really is).

Frank just says, "Me too," and then picks up the book and starts reading it, possibly to avoid further meaningful and emotional conversations, which, at this point, she totally understands.

They read in silence—near silence, Skulls is still snoring—until Karen's yawns become too frequent and she finally puts her book down to get ready for bed. Frank doesn't look up from his book when she gets up, apparently completely engrossed in the story (though his leg is bouncing and one of his hands is twitching- the itchy trigger finger that can never seem to rest). Karen gets ready for bed and changes in the bathroom, out of sight of her guest, and then asks him if he wants to borrow any clothes to sleep in, and he says no, he's fine, not once looking up from his book. She turns off the main light but leaves the lamp by the coffee table on for Frank to read. His sweatshirt has been discarded, lying on the arm of the couch next to him. He looks comfortable, sitting on her couch with his feet up, holding a book and drinking coffee, and it's a strange sight to behold.

Karen climbs into bed, pulling the blankets tight around her, feeling more content and safe than she has in a long time. She falls asleep to the sound of Skull's snores, which help to block out the never-ending stream of noise from the streets below. Just the simple presence of Frank on her couch and the dog make her feel so safe that her dreams are almost peaceful that night, or at least they aren't as intense, leaving her with some of the best sleep she's had in weeks.

 **(Note: gotta keep that slow burn going. hope you enjoyed it!)**


	8. Sprinkled Donuts

When Karen wakes up the next morning, Frank is gone but Skulls remains, curled up on her chair. He wags his tail when he sees her get out of bed, and he looks so sweet and pitiful that she just can't bring herself to yell at him for sleeping on the furniture. There's a note from Frank on her coffee table that reads: "you need more coffee. I'll be back for dog soon". A glance at her countertop shows her that Frank has gone through her coffee and thrown out the expired bags, leaving only one small bag, the one they'd been using last night. Karen had been meaning to go buy new bags for a week now, and just kept forgetting when she was out, and then by the time she got home she was too tired to go back out to the store. Karen just hoped that he would buy strong coffee, something rich; it looked like it was going to be a dreary Sunday, clouds hung low in the sky, heavy with rain.

Karen shuffles back to her bed and rifles through her closet for a clean pair of leggings and a sweatshirt. After nearly tripping over the bowls on her way to make a cup of coffee, she picks the bowls up and asks Skulls if he wants more food; he responds enthusiastically, as expected. She gets him some water and the rest of the chicken dish he'd had the night before, sticking a piece of broccoli in the bowl for good measure. He devours the food happily, tail wagging even as he's careful to keep his weight off his injured paw. She makes the rest of the coffee and tosses the empty bag with the others, tsking at the number of coffee bags she'd allowed to accumulate in her cupboards. Karen has to root around the fridge until she finds something edible (an apple that will only be good for a couple of more days) for breakfast, then curls up with her book again, waiting for Frank to get back.

By the time he knocks on her door, she's forgotten that she's waiting for him, and drops her book in anxious surprise at the loud sound at her door. She opens the door for him and finds that he has changed into (another) grey sweatshirt and baseball cap, and is carrying three bags of groceries.

"I take it you got more than just coffee?" She asks as she closes the door behind him and makes sure to do all the deadbolts and locks.

He grunts, setting the bags on the counter. "Got some coffee, and sugar, you didn't have any… and some food, since you weren't doin' too good with that either."

Karen joins him in putting away the groceries. "You really didn't have to do that. I can buy my own groceries."

"Some are for me too. And Skulls. We might stop by sometimes, work on cases… and Skulls seems to really like you. It'll do him good to see more people than just me." At the mention of his name, the dog lifts his head and wags his tail, but doesn't get up because of his paw. "I might be in and out for a couple of days while the dog's paw heals, if that's okay. Otherwise I can just carry him back."

Karen remembers the safety and comfort she'd felt that night from their presence. "No, no, stay," she says quickly. "I like the company."

She helps Frank put away the groceries and only tries to ask him to let her pay once; his "no" is so final that she doesn't see the point in asking again.

It's strange to see her food and cupboards holding fresh food—lately she's been living on takeout and cheap food that expires by the time she remembers she has it. Frank's selection is simple, mostly nutrition-based—but there's also a box of assorted donuts. Karen laughs when she sees them, half of them covered in sprinkles and chocolate. Frank already has another pot of coffee going, and it smells strong and dark, the smell filling her studio quickly. It's only ten thirty, still an appropriate time for breakfast, so Karen reaches for the box of donuts—at the same time as Frank. He recoils when their hands touch, like he's touched a burning stove, and she lets hers hover in the air, stunned by his quick movement. It's the first time their skin has touched, and he's so warm, burning even through the slight brush of their hands. Karen clears her throat and opens the box, grabbing two donuts and handing one to Frank.

"Even the Punisher's gotta get his carb load, huh?" she says as he takes the donut from her. He smiles a little, and they both pretend that he didn't just freak out a little.

Karen pads back over to the couch, sitting next to Skulls, who has made himself very much at home. She picks up her book but doesn't read it, instead staring at Frank, who's standing by the counter and staring at the brewing coffee while eating his donut slowly. His face is devoid of emotion save for his narrowed eyes, and Karen has to wonder when the last time was that Frank had touched another person's skin in a non-violent manner. Then she thinks about his wife and children and how he held on to his daughter while she was dying She ducks her head down in her book and tries to read, but she's just looking at the same paragraph over and over again as she thinks about how surreal everything that's happening right now is. The Punisher (even though really, she knows he can never stop being Frank Castle) is standing in her kitchen, eating a donut, and his dog is curled up at her feet. Matt Murdock is Daredevil, and his ex-girlfriend was a ninja; at least Foggy is normal, even if he's the only friend she has who is.

The coffeemaker beeps that it's done, but Karen doesn't hear anything else, and looks up to see that Frank is still just standing there, staring at it.

"Frank?"

He lifts his head and pours coffee into his cup, and then dumps three spoons of sugar into it, swirling it around.

"You okay?" She sets the book on her lap.

"Fine. Jus' thinkin'" he replies, voice low.

Karen isn't sure she wants to know what about, so she returns to her book, unaware that Frank is staring at her over his mug while she reads. He thinks about how it's always the small things that make you finally realize you might be doing the wrong thing. He doesn't know if there's a right thing anymore.


End file.
